THANE: The TMT ferries an average of nearly 817 passengers per bus daily making it one of the most crowded public transport services in the entire of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

An analysis with the buses operated by other civic transport bodies across MMR revealed that the city transport with 192 buses ferried around 1.57 passengers on an average daily which roughly works out to 817 commuters behind every bus. The readings are close to the BEST that ferries an average of 836 commuters followed by the Navi Mumbai transport with 898 passengers carried in each of its buses daily. The buses of the Khopoli municipal transport, located at the farthest end of the MMR, seem to be the most crowded ones with each vehicle carrying nearly 3,307 passengers throughout the day.

However, officials said the number of passengers ferried in each bus could vary depending on the length covered by each of them, the trips made by them and the duration for which it is pressed into service. Also, while a few non-popular routes could see fewer passenger counts, the same could be compensated with the dense routes where the demand is much higher than the capacity like that in the case of the Khopoli transport body whose services to and from Navi Mumbai run packed way beyond capacity while interior routes are almost empty.

The study is part of a state report released a few months ago on the performance of the transportation modes in 2016 of municipal councils spread across MMR. The study has a comparative statistics of seven civic bodies, including Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar and Khopoli among others in the region that operate transport buses collectively. The data accessed by TOI shows the average number of buses operated by each of the bodies along with total daily passenger count and the collective distance covered by each of the buses throughout the day.

While the high passenger count is justified by the BEST where each of the buses have a longer route to cover daily as compared to intra-city services like Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli and those like Khopoli and Navi Mumbai that reach out to adjoining cities also.

Experts interpreted the statistics by saying that public transport undertakings with high density could end up damaging the vehicles as carrying excessive load beyond a point of time could lead to wear and tear. The case is evident with the Thane Municipal Transport (TMT) that has seen frequent breakdowns in its services till recently when the newly inducted JNNURM buses were inducted in the fleet.